Jul 21, 2009

Some people suck the air out of a room. A few people breathe oxygen into a room. Paula Panich, the well-known garden writer and friend, is one of those people who enliven the space she inhabits.

Paula recently visited my garden. This was cause for a little anxiety. Being a person, who is usually dissatisfied, I worried the garden would be a let down. My garden is just a little bit of heaven to me and only me.

I’ve studied the rules for garden making. I’ve read countless books and articles by designers and landscapes architects. I’ve thought about what a garden can be and what my garden might be. Created over many years without a plan, the one constant has been my never-ending ability to change my mind and rip out what I don’t like. For an anarchist at heart, plans are difficult to adhere to. In my garden, I decided not to pay attention to any gardening conventions.

Paula knows this about me. She is able to perceive intention and ideas over skill and horticultural mastery. As Diane Keaton says to Jack Nicholson in Something’s Got A Give, “Either you hate me or you are the only person that ever really got me.” Paula is one of the few people, who has come to the garden and understood what I am trying to do, successfully or unsuccessfully.

Early evening, Paula leaves to return home. It rained that night. The next morning, I took my usual stroll around the garden. I planted some Sedum Prairie Fire right before Paula arrived. Being a sedum novice, I noticed something I hadn’t really thought about before. Sedum leaves catch water (see photo above). To me, these little droplets of rain mimicked my mood, I was missing Paula. Understanding another person is rare and it’s even rarer to find someone who gets it!

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